Seattle Sportsnet

Yes, this is really happening.

Dallas Mavericks’ center Erick Dampier wants to send Tony Parker flying and we’re cool with that. Tony Parker is arguably the cousin of the devil, who is of course Manu Ginobili.

Parker is Robin, to Ginobili’s Batman; he is Shaggy, to Ginobili’s Scooby Doo; he is Dwight Schrute, to Ginobili’s Michael Scott. If Manu Ginobili is the composer, then Tony Parker is the first-chair suck-up that sleeps his way to the top.

If you took a poll across this great nation of ours that asked, “If you could send Tony Parker flying with a hard foul, would you do it?” I would imagine that more than 50% of respondents would answer, “Yes.”

It’s a simple choice, really. Not unlike asking, “If you could snack on this amazingly delicious Blizzard from Dairy Queen, would you do it?” Of course you would, because Blizzards are delicious.

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The city of Seattle has had some epic draft busts over the years, which, once upon a time, we chronicled in three parts here, here, and here.

We may need to update our list in the near future, however, if Mariners’ farmhand Jeff Clement can’t get his act together.

The supposed “catcher of the future” has been less than spectacular since becoming the third overall pick in the 2005 MLB Draft. Taken just after Kansas City’s Alex Gordon and just before Washington’s Ryan Zimmerman, Clement has been one of the duds of an otherwise loaded draft class from that year.

Of the first ten selections of that ’05 draft, only two of the draftees are not currently on big league rosters: oft-injured pitcher Wade Townsend (Tampa Bay, eighth overall pick), and Clement.

Have a look at some of the first-round names that were taken after Clement’s selection at No. 3:

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